Marriage Matters: Ultimate transformational process

Did you know that you and your spouse are engaging in transformational processes? Yep, that’s right.

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By James and Audora Burg

Sturgis Journal - Sturgis, MI

By James and Audora Burg

Posted Nov. 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM

By James and Audora Burg

Posted Nov. 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM

Did you know that you and your spouse are engaging in transformational processes? Yep, that’s right.

You might even be transformational process experts and not know it.

Family scholars define transformational process as the ability to change a relationship from within, that a marriage can self-regulate without needing external assistance such as marriage education or therapy.

Change is always occurring; it is just that sometimes it is hard to see because the pace is so slow. For example, the amount of growth in a baby’s first year of life is astonishing, yet from one day to another it is difficult to judge that much has changed. However, when you flip through pictures from that first year, it is like time-lapse photography that punctuates the growth that was before you every day.

Change in marriage may be quite similar. Although much remains the same over time, slight adaptations are always occurring as we respond to our own development as well as the world around us.

Our column is often about change and developing healthier marriages, but we must admit that our base personalities are the type that prefer stability and consistency. How else to explain why our closet is full of clothes that date back to the previous decade.

Yet after Audora’s stroke we became a single-earner family and made adjustments. When baby Paul was born and we became parents of an infant (again), our lives changed. When Jim was assigned to a role at work that required more time away from family, we adapted.

While it may seem that change brings chaos, the opposite is also true. To not change when life requires it brings a level of rigidity that can yield dysfunction. But how does a couple engage in change without losing who they are?

In a recent article in the scholarly journal Family Relations, researchers looked at the role that religion plays for some couples as they transform. In particular, the authors looked at how religion impacts commitment and coping skills – that is, how they handle conflict.

For example, pertaining to how couples cope with life’s many issues, the researchers found themes such as the importance of having shared beliefs, keeping a long-term perspective, that challenges are needed in life, and that challenges brought them closer to God.

So through the lens of their religion, the couples’ change was filtered though a sense of long-term commitment and that challenges are not only normal, but that challenges can have positive benefits.

The couples felt that participation with their faith was part of what made their relationships stronger; it was not just the belief system of their religion, but living the life of their religion that continued to transform their relationship into something stronger.

Page 2 of 2 - The ultimate transformational process—that through marriage, two become one.